Summit Academy currently serves elementary students and stands on a rural Draper street, near the intersection of 13200 South and 1300 East. Ever since it opened in 2004, neighbors have been reeling from traffic overdoses, and now they fear those will only get worse.

An ongoing expansion project at Summit will add a junior high, possibly by Christmas break, and nearly double enrollment from 550 to 1,000 eventually.

Resident David Webster led the appeal and said the City Council's 3-2 vote this week ignored evidence and the opinion of the city's own engineer.

"The traffic issues have been severe for the past two years, and the school has not addressed them," Webster said. "Now they've asked the council to believe their new traffic program will alleviate future concerns, and I see the same thing happening again."

But Summit Academy Board Chairman Dave Crandall said the expansion plans will solve all existing issues and accommodate for new traffic.

"The only way traffic will get better is by adding the infrastructure we have planned," Crandall said Friday. "With addition of the 7.5 acres for the junior high, we do have some room to address traffic issues and hopefully get stacking off the street and onto our property."

Crandall said 88,422 square feet - 27 percent of the new land - will accommodate traffic, parking and emergency vehicles, while 152,600 square feet will be landscaped and used as activity fields.

He acknowledged current traffic problems and said the school is working with the city toward temporary parking plans during the junior high's construction.

Councilman Bill Colbert, who voted with the narrow majority to deny the appeal, said the school has done a lot of analysis and complied with state statutes.

"The school demonstrated they were mitigating the effects," said Colbert, who also is a member of the Utah Board of Education.

"Anytime you have any school go in, there are impacts on local neighborhoods," he added. "But this may be the only middle school we get in Draper anytime soon if Jordan [School District] keeps putting off [locating] a middle school in our community."

sgehrke@sltrib.com